Saturday, September 22, 2007

Black on white crime

If a population were 90% white and 10% black, and if crime were race-blind, then would you expect more white-on-black crime or black-on-white crime?

The simple answer is that it should be exactly the same. You would expect more white criminals, and more white victims. But the interracial crime should be symmetrical.

Take a simple numerical example. Suppose you have 100 people, including 90 whites and 10 blacks. Suppose that 10% are criminals, and each criminal mugs 10% of the population. Then you would have 9 white criminals, and each would mug 1 black and 9 whites, for a total of 9 white-on-black crimes. You would have 1 black criminal mugging 1 black and 9 whites, for a total of 9 black-on-white crimes. That is 9 cross-racial crimes, either way.

The actual crime data for the USA is not symmetrical. There is far more black-on-white crime than white-on-black crime, no matter how you measure it.

Those who complain about the prosecution of the Jena 6 act as if whites are committing crimes on blacks. But every account of the Jena 6 incidents shows that the serious crimes were committed by blacks on whites.

It appears to me that the only reason that anyone has any sympathy for the Jena 6 is some confusion over the name "Justin". One white boy named Justin was involved in putting a couple of nooses on a tree in a school yard as a prank. Another white boy named Justin got beaten up and left unconscious several months later. There is no connection between the nooses and the beating, and some out-of-town racial agitators assumed that it was the same Justin. It was not. The beating was an ordinary and brutal crime by some thugs who belong in jail. Let Jena deal with it.

If it turns out that the Jena 6 were motivated in part by racial tensions in the town, then they are guilty of a hate crime, and should receive extra stiff sentences under hate crime laws.